Gay political leaders in South Florida -- Republicans included -- praised President Barack Obama's announcement Wednesday that he now supports same-sex marriage.

Here are their reactions and analysis.

Julie Carson, a city commissioner in Wilton Manors and vice president of the Dolphin Democrats gay and lesbian political club, said Obama made the right decision.

“I’m very excited to hear that and I am particularly glad that he has come to that decision in an election year,” she said. “I believe that it is a very important and somewhat risky stance to take, and a re-election of Barack Obama will serve in part as an affirmation of the civil rights of GLBT people.”

“This is an historical moment,” she said.

Carson’s city, Wilton Manors, is considered by many to be the unofficial gay capital of South Florida. An analysis of Census Bureau data last year showed that Wilton Manors has 140 same-sex couples per 1,000 households. Overall, Florida had 8.8 same-sex couples for every 1,000 households.

The only U.S. city with a higher concentration of same-sex couples in Provincetown, Mass.
Carson said there could be some political benefits and some political difficulties for the president. “I think he will pay a price among very conservative Democrats. And I believe that he will have the continued support of the GLBT population.”

“The president has said that he values all people and is committed to the civil rights and human rights of certainly all Americans and by extension others. This is no different than what he has said theoretically all along. He is just now taking that final stand,” she said.

Carson said she and her partner have been together a little longer than 11 years. Gay marriage is illegal in Florida and they aren’t married.

“We have thought about it certainly. And I think his making a statement is certainly not going to change the way Florida thinks right now. His making a statement is certainly not going to change the vote in North Carolina. But it is certainly encouraging to have someone who is at his level standing with us.

“Right now it certainly is not going to change anything that I do other than to continue to fight for marriage equality in Florida,” she said.

Jack Majeske, vice president of the Broward Log Cabin Republican Club, which is mainly a gay and lesbian political club, and a Republican committeeman, said he was pleased at the president’s move.

“I’m surprised. Of course looking at the polls shows that over 50 percent of the public in favor of it,” he said. “Let’s face it. The handwriting is on the wall. Eventually it [gay marriage] is going to come.”

He said he didn’t think it would help or hurt the president politically.

“I don’t think it makes any difference as far as the voting goes. He’s going to lose some of the black vote because some of the black churches seem to be adamant against gay marriage. Most of the gays are Democrats, so that’s not going to make nay difference. For those of us who are Republicans, it’s not going to make any difference either. We’re certainly not going to vote for him under any circumstances.”

“I think the pressure was on him. I think the pressure was on him. He almost had to. And that saves him fighting among [the Democratic Party],” he said.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, said Obama made the right decision.

“It’s commendable. It’s a high-risk political maneuver in a highly charged election season. It should earn him some support among the gay community, who may now more actively campaign for him.”

Foley served almost 12 years in Congress representing a Palm Beach County-based district. He resigned shortly before the 2006 election after he became embroiled in a scandal over sexually laced Internet messages he exchanged with teens. His partner of 28 years, Layne Nisenbaum, died in March. He suffered liver failure while waiting for a transplant.

Foley said there’s been some private grumbling about gay and lesbian activists that he was slow to support repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell ban on gays serving openly in the military and on his reluctance to support same-sex marriage.

“It caught a lot of gay activists that he was kind of lukewarm on their issues,” he said.

Foley said Obama’s move could hurt him with some black and Hispanic voters, who may be inclined to vote for the president’s re-election, but are culturally conservative and may see his support of same-sex marriage “as an attack on religious principles.”

He sees any damage as minimal. “At the end of the day when you look at it people who were going to vote against Obama aren’t going to change their minds. It’s just whether he provides a backlash of African-Americans who may find this not to be a good public policy stand for the president.”

He said he’s glad the president clarified his position, because it’s “better than watching Jay Carney sweating” – a reference to the president’s press secretary dodging questions on the issue since Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that he supports gay marriage.

Michael Albetta of Fort Lauderdale, past president of the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Caucus, said he thinks the president weighted the political and policy evidence before coming to his conclusion.

“He’s an excellent chess player. He doesn’t knee jerk,” Albetta said.

“Some people say he threw gas on the fire. I think he did. He answered the question that a lot of people were waiting for instead of walking the fine line,” Albetta said.

“It’s going to fire up both sides of the aisle. It’s going to fire up the religious right. It’s going to fire up the tea party people. It’s going to fire up his adversaries. It’s also going to get us out. We’re not going to sit at home. We’re going to make sure he is the president of the United States again. Not just the gays. The progressives. The women. The youth. Everybody.”

Gary Resnick, the openly gay mayor of Wilton Manors, said he doesn’t think Obama will be hurt by his stand.

“In my mind in this day and age it’s a non issue and I don’t think most people really care about this so much any more.

“But it was an evolved position When I look at my own family, Eric and I have been together over 10 years and it takes some people some time to get used to treating gay and lesbian couples the same as they do heterosexual couples. I can understand why it takes some people some time to get comfortable with that,” he said. “People in their 30s and younger don’t care so much.”

“I hope that this does create a path for legislation that will provide the same rights to gay and lesbian couples as heterosexual couples,” he said.

Resnick said he and his partner haven’t gotten married elsewhere. “It’s illegal in Florida. We did not get married because it doesn’t mean anything in Florida.”

Comments

I've never understood all the fuss. If two adults are in love and want to marry that's their business. The same rules should apply to them as anybody else. Our world has many pressing problems. That's not one of them. Get over it already and move on. Discuss.

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About the authors

Broward County is an unusually rich territory for political news. The Broward Politics blog is devoted to the politicians, the activists, the parties, the policies, the issues, the elections - in the county and its communities.

ANTHONY MAN is the Sun Sentinel’s political writer. Concentrating on local political people, parties and trends, he also covers state and national politics from a South Florida perspective. He's coordinating the Broward Politics blog with contributions from reporters throughout the county. Before moving to the Broward political beat, he covered politics and Palm Beach County government for the Sun-Sentinel, including touch-screen voting and the Supervisor of Elections Office. He's also covered municipal, county, state, and federal elections and made repeated reporting trips to Tallahassee for regular and special sessions of the Florida Legislature. He joined the Sun-Sentinel in 2002 after covering state and local politics in Illinois. Like so many others in South Florida, he's originally from a New York suburb (Rockland County).

BRITTANY WALLMAN covers Broward County and news. A 1991 University of Florida graduate, Wallman started her journalism career at the Fort Myers News Press. She and her husband Bob Norman have two young children -- Creed and Lily. Wallman was born in Iowa and spent half her childhood there, the remainder in Oklahoma. She has covered local government and elections her entire reporting career -- including covering the infamous 2000 recount here in the presidential election. (She has a Mason jar with a "hanging chad'' inside to prove it.)

LARRY BARSZEWSKI covers Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors. In the past, he has reported on Palm Beach County government and schools, aging and social issues, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach and state legislative sessions. He wrote for the Denver Post, Bradenton Herald and Miami Herald before joining the Sun Sentinel in 1988. A Massachusetts native, he lives in Boca Raton with his wife, Maggie, and teenage daughters Jessica and Jackie.